Resident Evil 7’s Photorealistic 3D Scanning Technology Detailed

Fear that sticks with you.

Capcom are really going all out on the upcoming Resident Evil 7, cutting no corners and holding nothing back. Take, for instance, the games ambitious photorealistic 3D scanning technology. In the company’s latest annual report, Capcom’s Makoto Fukui, Technical Artist of Section 1 discussed the technology being employed in the game, and how it enhanced and added to its atmosphere of horror.

“The theme of Resident Evil 7 is “fear that sticks with you.” Terror waits in the humid and stifling air—I want to create a realistic sense of that in 3DCG, so it clings to your body and memory,” he said. “To pursue realism, we created one of the world’s largest scale 3D scanning systems, an important tool contributing to the meticulously crafted reality of our games. Leveraging the merits of possessing such a system in-house, we paid particular attention on this title to technologies that faithfully reproduce human expressions.

“This degree of reproduction is unlike anything that has come before, achieving realism that is truly human. Using this system, we are able to generate data on expressions from a variety of angles with just one shot, dramatically increasing development speed,” Fukui continued. “However, we are not merely pursuing efficiency or photorealism. On top of overwhelming realism, we’ve added characters and other touches typical of Resident Evil, resulting in a game that appeals like only Capcom games can. To achieve this, the work flow was revised to complete casting, special-effects makeup and costume coordination in the steps prior to character design. In doing so, we further enhanced accuracy and were able to better reflect the feeling of the Resident Evil world in the 3D data, creating reality so convincing it is as if the characters actually exist.”

It does sound like Capcom are leaving no stone unturned in their effort to deliver what may just be the ultimate horror game- let’s hope the final game reflects all of their effort and investment.